I've been on a semi vacation of late, doing no programming, but I've been playing the part of producer a bit. Planning and playing with excel.

Game Textures.I've been seeking to improve the graphics of the game, namely the textures. The textures will be brought a bit up to date with the latest standards. Normal maps, shine, Physic based rendering.Now, textures is something I haven't given much thought too. I have my hands full with writing missions, programming the game, creating weapons and internal modules and more and more to start learning how to do textures.So I leave the textures in the hands of someone with the know how.

MissionsI've finished writing up the main mission. It's currently 12 parts, but I might reduce that number if i feel its too long.The main mission involves around gathering the 12 parts of the Dii Consentes( The 12 parts of the A.I. needed to fix the wormhole). I've written hopefully interesting scenarios which complicate the players effort to gather the parts. Its no simple fetch missions. The parts are coveted by various factions and some of the parts might have gone a little crazy.

It's interesting to write missions for space scenes. Since space is a open area, its not like I can create dungeons to explore, but I can create interesting areas using the clouds, asteroids, derelict ships and space anomalies.Although I've done some experimentation with an huge hollow asteroid, which sort of is a dungeon... I successfully navigated a single ship through the huge asteroid, So I'm pretty sure a asteroid dungeon will be part of the game, maybe more than one.

FactoriesFactories have been added to the game. They allow you to use various materials to construct whatever is available in the game. Ammo, drones, missiles, modules and weapons. The Idea is that you find blueprints in the game and you use your collected materials to construct special items. The factories work, but you can only construct simple things currently. I've been playing with the idea of allowing the player to construct ships, but ships would require a rather gargantuan ship with a lots of material for construction, like the Homeworld ship. You would need a home base of some sort. There are huge ships in the game. Mobile trade stations which the player could own and operate. (Not as trade stations). It's a thought.

Ship captureThere are boarding drones in the game. They have not been implemented yet. But the idea is that they would be a one shot deal. Fire the boarding drone at a target, hope it hits. It will then burrow its way through the armor. More armor more time, Once through a internal battle will rage inside the ship. The bigger the ship, the more drones you will need.If you manage to take over the ship, you will have a ship with no captain, 3 crew members and an on board A.I(Hacked to serve you).With a low crew member number your ship will operate rather badly.As you can currently only control six ships at a given time, any new ship would be moved to your ship reserves.

Boarding dronesBoarding drones will not only be used to capture ships. They will also be needed to board various ships, stations and other interesting places. It's basically a boarding shuttle.For ship capture they will be a one shot deal, but for other purposes it will be reusable.

DialogThe game will contain a rather lot of dialog. I am thinking of trying to reduce it a bit. So it won't consume the player time and attention. Currently in the Alpha demo, there is audio for Captain Octavius. Please note that this does not mean that all the dialog will have audio. Audio is expensive. I'm planning on having the audio like in the original Fallout games.Only selective characters will have audio. Other will be text only.

I've been thinking about changing the window for the dialog. The current one works fine, but is limited by its size.Its a bit cramped down there in its little corner. Maybe add a little popup window.I'm trying to make it fit into a standalone resolution.

Hello everybody. It's been a while since anything was posted here. But I've been busy. There is now a version 0.97.1 alpha demo available. I will now only be creating Linux and Windows versions. Mac isn't playing nice with my machine. Lots of stuff has been updated. New perks. Perk data updated. The UI has been improved. Hacking and module targeting improved.A Sav egame feature has been added, although it is a work in progress. May not work completely. Modules and ship data updated. Price for modules updated, etc. Factory function added. It allows the player currently to manufacture ammo for cannons, missiles etc. Player can now change his character name and image. Various fixes to station trade. Random encounter generation. Cinematic camera feature. Instead of grabbing your camera. The game will now display a small window to show you items of interest. Added key binding at the Ceres configuration screen. Follow order added to Quick GUI. This allows you to order your ships to follow one ship. It works well if you want to control just one ship and make the others in your fleet follow it.The follow order works for both friendly and hostile targets although Issuing a follow order on a hostile ship will order your ship to attack the target.Radar range has been changed. Its been extended to a factor of 3. Various scenes now affect your radar range. The Khaos could for instance reduces your radar range by 66%. Clouds can also reduce is even further.

Fleet view updated. You can now control your modules in detail. Turn them off or on or change their power usage. Tactical view has been changed. You now cycle through 3 views. First is ships, second loot, and third both.

Whats next? Improve the save game load time.More content is being added. More ships, more modules, etc.Work is progressing on creating new scenes. New missions and interesting stuff.Game tutorial improvement. I know the game is a bit complex to get into. As the designer it's quite easy to play. This is needed!A.I window will be changed. The Attributes will be removed and replaced with A.I. info window.A faction window will be added. Here you can see each faction hostility towards you. You will also be able to change their disposition towards you by paying a fee. This should allow you to stop the Terran Alliance from destroying you... This will also work with the pirates, although only temporary. A fixed no fire time.

The game is about to reach a feature freeze stage. That means I will stop adding new features, unless something fun and interesting or vital will appear of course, that won't take too long to implement.The one thing about the game that is bugging me the most is the formations function.Its use seems to me be a bit limited.Currently you just create formation that you use with a created group. Select the group and select the formation. Issue a move order and a formation plane will appear and all ships will move to their placement.

What I would like is that the ships would use your player ship as their leader, place themselves into their formation position to him. That way the ships would follow you and try to stay in formation.This is probably something that is needed.